Filabot Could Help You Get The Recycleable Plastic You Need For 3D Printing

Mar 04, 2013 12:24

Not only is 3D printing expensive, but the raw material for it is too as well. A new kind of tech is allowing you to use all that empty shampoo, milk cartons, and moisturizing cream containers as raw material.

Over at Michigan Technological University, researchers created a plastic extruder called Filabot, and will turn home recyclables into usable filament for 3D printing. The machine takes 4 inch pieces of plastic and shred them before melting the plastic and extruding it through changeable nozzles.

Filabot uses a tenth of the energy needed to recycle empty bottles to produce its filament.

The first model, the Filabot Reclaimer, is in production now. [Filabot via PhysOrg]

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